Brazil is South American largest country. It borders all the other nations on the continent except Ecuador and Chile. The country may be divided into the plateau, Brazil highlands, and the northern Amazon Basin. The country is drained by the Amazon River and it has 40% of the population in the continent.
The legislation in Brazil prohibits companies in the telecommunication sector from operating internet access businesses. In this perspective, therefore, a company like Telemar which is the biggest company that deals with phone business can only sell broadband access but in order for the client to get internet access, he/she has to contract with an internet service provider. The Brazilian umbrella body for the internet service providers is called Abranet. Most of the internet service providers offer their services in the Portuguese language. There are several internet service providers in Brazil and most of them are privately operated businesses.
The first is the Universo On-Line (UOL) which is the largest Brazilian group that offers its services in the Portuguese language. Most of the magazines online are easily accessible from the Universo On-Line and most of the company’s subscribers enjoy unlimited access to the magazines around the clock. The second internet service provider in Brazil is the American On-Line which is a Brazilian Branch of America. In spite of its extensive and continuous marketing, the company commands a small section of the market in the country and as a result, it has very few subscribers as compared to any other company.
The third internet service provider is Terra which is another portal that commands a large share of the market segment. The company belongs to the Telefonica group and due to this the company has faced a number of unfair competition accusations. The company boasts of a massive number of subscribers although not as numerous as those of Universo Online. There is stiff competition between the companies mentioned above and due to this a company like Universo On-Line has very low charges for its services, for example, it charges R$30 per month to any customer who would like to enjoy full access to content and an unlimited dial-up connection.
Access to Broadband begins from the as low amount as R$80 per month. The prices are flexible as they vary depending on the connection speed and this is inclusive of the modem rent. The country’s most popular broadband provider is Velox Company. The network infrastructure in Brazil is still uneven in scope as well as in scale despite its rapid growth in recent years.
In the1980s the country halted the spending in the expansion of the network infrastructure due to the debt crisis which saw the sector take a long time to regain its momentum. Deregulation policies as well privatization policies were used in the 1990s to reverse the under-investment trends that had crippled the sector and due to this rapid development of the ICT infrastructure has been witnessed.
In spite of these developments, the network infrastructure was not advancing at the desired pace and due to this, Ehile, a Brazilian business triangle was formed. It covered areas such as Sao Paulo, Minas, Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro. The Ehile has achieved significant developments because it has a high capacity fiber, bandwidth, and virtual private networks which are at par with those of Europe and those in the United States of America.
However much of the countryside has limited access to internet services. The government in its Universal Access Plan is seeking to make the provision of the infrastructure affordable to low-income areas in order to ensure that a large section of its population enjoys internet services, especially in the countryside.
Approximately 4.5 million small and micro enterprises (SMEs) are known to operate in Brazil. An e-commerce platform ViaSebrae was developed through a joint venture of a non-profit organization Sebrae/SC and the for-profit company-Paradigma which are units of small-scale businesses in Brazil. There are two e-commerce models that are functional in Brazil. They are business-to-consumer (B2C) and the business-to-business (B2B) models.
The B2B model serves objectives that are social through enabling companies that operate in the B2C segment to participate in initiatives concerning e-commerce that they could have otherwise not afford. A good example of the B2B model used in Brazil is the RS Components and mySap.com which enhances good relationships between businesses. The most common examples of B2C in use in Brazil are www.amazon.com and the internship infinity which also enhances good relationships between businesses and consumers.
Bibliography
George, B. and Delta, J. The future of internet network in Brazil, Sao Paulo: Sao Paulo Press, 2001.
Daniel, A. Internet infrastructure in Brazil, New York: McGraw Hill Publishers, 2003.
Dennis, C. The internet costs and technological devices in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro: Rio de Janeiro Press, 2004.
The need to adopt B2B e-commerce strategy in Brazil. Web.
Micro scale business enterprises use of B2C strategy in Brazil. Web.